Was she involved in Kathy’s death? Was Grove? What was the link? She tried to think, clear her thoughts of all the sidetracks, all the extra information.
If she let this go on, if she went back again, there would be even more hyperlinks, hundreds more connections. How many more could there be? The sidetracks were endless. The crossover with Grove was growing as if alive: it was spreading through virtuality, dragging in more connections between them, perhaps creating them.
It was that endlessness again, the lack of an edge or a boundary, only extremes.
She thought, It’s enough. I don’t want to know about Kathy Devore. Not now. It’s too late for that. I have to concentrate on one thing. What I want, what I need. Hyper-reality has broken down, and I can go to the extremes.
Continue with 658 hyperlink(s) connecting ‘Teresa Ann Simons’ to ‘Gerry/Gerald Dean Grove’? Yes/No.
Teresa clicked on Yes. The seemingly endless listing resumed.
William Cook (one hundred and eleven main items, but with hundreds of others hyperlinked elsewhere), Charles Whitman (two hundred and twenty-seven main items, but with thousands of others adjacent), James and Michaela Surtees (two), Jason Hartland (thirty-three items), Sam Wilkins McLeod (fifteen), Deke Cannigan (who?—anyway thirty), Charles Dayton Hunter (eighty-one items), Joseph L. McLaughlin (twenty-four), José Porteiro (eighteen)…
After the six hundred and thirty-fourth numbered scenario, the program paused, but Teresa could sense it working, searching the database, assembling, sorting. Then the screen shifted one more time, and the last twenty-four scenarios were listed.
They were all for Andy/Andrew Wellman Simons.
The video frame of the first scenario of the twenty-four showed Andy’s bulky figure standing alert beside a car. He was holding a gun in both hands, looking back over one shoulder into the distance. He had on his FBI bulletproof vest, the Bureau’s famous initials clearly inscribed.
The hierarchical information for this item was:
Participatory/Operative-enabled/Non-interactive/State or County PD/State PD/Texas/Kingwood City/Multiple Murder/Spree/Guns/John Luther Aronwitz/Federal Agent Andrew Wellman Simons.
Andy was what she wanted, all she wanted.
Tears were welling in her eyes as Teresa moved the pointer to the ExEx box. She clicked on it, and a few seconds later the equipment delivered her phial of nanochips.
Holding in her hand the life and death of her husband, Teresa walked through to the simulator area of the building, and found a technician to set the scenario in motion.
CHAPTER 37
Federal Agent Andy Simons parked his car outside police lines, pulled on his bulletproof vest with the FBI initials displayed prominently at front and back, jerked his cap down over his forehead and went to find Captain Jack Tremmins, officer in charge. According to protocol, Andy offered any assistance that might be required.
Teresa had forgotten how hot a Texas summer afternoon could be: a sticky, spreading heat, which made everything seem to bum around you, whether in shade or not. The concrete of the parking lot scorched through the soles of Andy’s shoes, and the almost vertical sunlight battered down on the crown of his head through the thin plastic of his cap. There was a smell of rag-weed, stinging his sinuses.
Andy had always suffered pollen allergies.
Teresa stared through Andy’s eyes around the immense parking lot, trying to orient herself. She had been in Britain long enough to forget the scale on which Texan shopping malls were built. Most of Bulverton’s Old Town would fit into this lot and she knew there would be further acres of parking spaces on the other sides of the massive mall. The great dome of the Texan sky stretched overhead, its vastness emphasized by the flat horizons in all directions. Only buildings stood up against the sky to lend a sense of scale.
Texas was a place of extremes, a place without limits.
Away beyond police lines the normal business of the North Cross shopping mall continued: the gunman had been cornered in the service bay in the rear of the building, and after hurried consultations with the mall administrator, the police had allowed the stores inside the building to resume trading normally. The only restraint on movement was in this area, around the loading and unloading bays. Although the gunman had already killed several people, he was thought to present no further danger to the public.
Andy found Captain Tremmins, who quickly and efficiently briefed him on all this. He took him over to meet Lieutenant Frank Hanson, in charge of the SWAT team. Andy said to Hanson he would like to go through and talk with the mall administration, but if he was required to render any assistance…
Andy had to walk round the long way, past the service bays, to get inside the huge building. As he stepped under the police tape, sweating in the terrible heat, Teresa said, ‘Andy?’
There was no response.
‘Andy, can you hear me? It’s me, Tess.’
He kept striding on, looking from side to side watchfully. He rounded a corner and came to a huge entrance vestibule built of steel and glass: overhead there was a sign intended to be read from a mile away. It said: NORTH CROSS CENTER—West Entrance. A group of armed police let him through, and at once he was in the air-conditioned chill inside.
‘Andy? Can you give me a sign you know I’m here?’
He walked on without responding. There was a doughnut counter, a book store, a furniture shop, a leather-goods store; they came into a broad atrium with mature trees, a series of rolling waterfalls, a fountain playing under coloured lights…
Teresa remembered how she had learned to shift position when she was in Grove’s mind: while she stayed at the back of his mind she could not communicate with him, but she influenced his decisions and movements; when she moved forward she felt as if he had taken control of himself again but she was exposed to all his thoughts and instincts. She tried to shift position in Andy’s mind, but either the scenario was written differently or Andy was of sterner mentality. She could make no impact on his thoughts or movements.
‘Andy! Listen to me! This is Tess, your wife. Don’t go on with this, get back to your car. Wait until Danny Schneider joins up with you, consult with him, don’t do this alone, you’re going to be killed if you go on.’
She stopped, thinking how English she sounded, how polite and reasonable. In the old days Andy had sometimes teased her when a Liverpool phrase or a bit of slang from childhood crept into her speech. She’d always been able to imitate Ringo Starr better than anyone else around them; Andy had liked that.
‘I don’t think you should be doing this, Andrew,’ she said, trying to capture Ringo’s nasal tones.
But Andy went on, disregarding everything she said. Three more uniformed police directed him to the admin block, and one of them travelled up in the elevator with him. Andy made polite small-talk with the cop: he had a family, lived in Abilene, his wife was expecting another baby. He had a rolling Texas accent, most words given an extra syllable, and he called Andy ‘sir’ with every reply.
What it was to hear Andy’s voice again! Slightly gruff, with a trick in some of the sounds, like he needed to clear his throat, but it was always there, just the noise he made when he spoke.
‘I love you, Andy!’ she cried desperately. ‘Stop this! Please…leave with me! You’re not needed here! Let’s wait in the car until the cops have caught the man!’
There followed a short interview between Andy and the mall administrator, a woman called Betty Nolanski. Mrs Nolanski’s main concern was the fact that the mall had only been fully open for three months. Last year two of the major chains had cancelled their leases at the eleventh hour, and she thought this incident might scare away more. She told Andy there were still fourteen major units standing empty. She wanted the gunman removed immediately, and with no more publicity.
Andy and Mrs Nolanski walked down together to the main floor while this was being said.
Teres
a said, ‘Tell her she’s in a boom town, Andy. She wants to see a place with economic problems, she should go to Bulverton.’
At ground level the news was that Aronwitz had still not been apprehended. Andy asked Mrs Nolanski if there were any utility ducts or tunnels by which the service bay could be reached, and at once a buildings manager was instructed to show him where the entrances were. Andy had to explain that his rôle here was advisory only, and that Lieutenant Hanson should be given the plans of the utility area of the building.
Teresa felt panic rising in her as time went on ticking by. She knew that this incident was approaching its bloody end, and that she could not influence it in any way.
Non-interactive, it had said in the index heading.
Trying again, she said urgently, ‘Andy, can you hear me? Andy! Listen to me! You’re going to get hurt! Leave this to the police. This is their problem, not yours!’
She thought about aborting from the scenario, trying one of the others that dealt with Aronwitz, but she knew from her training that interdiction scenarios were mastered only by repeated attempts to get them right.
Andy left the administrator, and headed back towards the police lines. Once outside, in the broiling heat once more, he went straight to Captain Tremmins to be given a status update.
Some of Hanson’s men had entered the service area through utility tunnels under the bays, but Aronwitz had shot his second hostage a few minutes ago and then disappeared. Tremmins was presently out of contact not only with the SWAT team but also with his own men who were supposed to be keeping Aronwitz under surveillance.
Andy said, ‘Then he’s gone underground too. You think your SWAT guys can take him out? They done this kind of thing before?’
‘Some,’ said Tremmins.
‘Let’s get round to the utility area. If he’s going to break out, that’s where it will have to be.’
‘Yes, Andy,’ Teresa said fervently, in his mind. ‘That’s where he’ll be. Stop doing this! My God! Stop doing this, Andy!’
It was an area beneath the shadow of the service area of the mall: a large concrete yard, with waste silos, batteries of extractor fans, an electricity sub-station, and several huge fuel tanks. Suddenly, word came through on the radio that the SWAT team had located Aronwitz, who had fired some shots, eluded them, and was heading this way.
Tremmins ordered his men to take cover, and around twenty police officers circled the area with their guns.
Aronwitz burst into view, gun in hand. When he saw the police he halted, almost overbalancing from the loading platform he was on.
‘Freeze, Aronwitz! Throw down your weapon!’
Instead, Aronwitz stood erect, and made a circling motion with his gun, a deliberate, wide swinging of the arm. He cocked the weapon, the click audible in every part of the yard.
Teresa stared in disbelief. The gunman was Gerry Grove.
Andy stood up, reacting to her shocked realization. Grove/Aronwitz saw the movement and turned towards him. Teresa watched, frozen in terror, as Grove levelled the gun at Andy, steadied his hand by gripping his wrist, and slowly squeezed the trigger.
Just as she had shown him.
Teresa desperately recalled LIVER, and managed to withdraw an instant before Grove shot Andy in the head, smashing away most of the top of his skull.
Copyright © GunHo Corporation in all territories
Teresa stared in horror at the image of the GunHo corporate logo as she heard the roar of the bullets of Captain Tremmins’ men blowing away the gunman. Darkness fell.
Sharon was still on duty in the simulators, and as soon as Teresa was sitting up the technician came into the recovery cubicle and removed the nanochips. Teresa’s mind was swirling with images of Andy: his voice, his large strong body, his way of walking, the calm and professional manner in which he had set up the circumstances that led to his own death. Entering that scenario had been everything she had once dreaded such an experience would be: a terrible closeness to Andy, a more terrible distance, and a total inability to save his life. That she had at last learned how he died was small recompense. None, in fact. She sat in morbid silence, going through an echoing reminder of her distress of the previous year, trying to cope, trying not to be overwhelmed by her feelings.
Sharon seemed equally preoccupied, but the business with the credit card went ahead smoothly, and Teresa slipped the paperwork into a zipped pocket of her new tote bag. She checked the time: less than an hour had elapsed while she had been in the Aronwitz scenario. The date was still June 3.
Sharon was uncommunicative, and seemed anxious to move on to her next task. Teresa asked her what the matter was.
‘There’s something happening in the town,’ Sharon said. ‘It’s been on the radio. The staff have been told we can’t leave the building until the police say it’s safe.’
‘I thought I heard sirens earlier.’
‘They say that someone’s going around with a gun. There are police outside the building now. They think the gunman was seen up here earlier.’
Teresa nodded, but said nothing. Sharon left her, so Teresa walked back to the computer cubicles, and found a terminal that was not in use. She put down her bags on the chair, and went into the Ladies’ restroom.
Alone, she sagged. She could not help herself: she locked herself in one of the toilet cubicles and gave way to the grief. The tears flooded out. Someone else came into the restroom, used another toilet, and left again. Teresa managed to stem her tears until she was alone, then once more allowed her feelings to pour out.
They were but a reminder of the real anguish, and after the flood she regained her composure with remarkable speed. Drying her eyes, she realized that what had upset her was nothing new, that she had been through all that.
She wondered if she was merely suppressing the grief again. But no, the situation was different now: she was in a position actually to do something. Grove had changed the rules.
Most of the natural light in the room came through the sloping window in the half-roof, but there was another small frosted window in the wall at the far end. Teresa eased this open, to find a restricted view. An extension of the main building was opposite the window, so it was possible to see only a narrow angle to one side. By leaning out and craning her neck, Teresa could see a short section of Welton Road.
A cordon of bright-orange police tape ran alongside the row of parked cars; one of these was Grove’s stolen Montego. No one was close to the cars, and all the doors and windows of the Montego were closed. An armed policeman wearing a bulletproof vest was standing with his back to her, looking about him systematically. There was no other sign of activity. She knew the police here would act the same as federal agents in the same circumstances: don’t touch a vehicle known or thought to carry arms or explosives.
Teresa closed the window, left the restroom and returned to the computer cubicle.
She entered her new membership number, and after a pause the program went into its start-up routine.
Teresa watched the display screens flick past, and come to a rest on the screenful of main options. She rested her hand on the mouse, stared blankly at the screen, and tried to decide what to do.
Teresa recalled that she had made one decision early on: she wanted to know as little as possible about Aronwitz. He had come out of obscurity to take from her the only person who truly mattered in her life, and it had seemed to her from the outset that obscurity was where he should properly stay. Her work in the Bureau had shown her how criminals often became minor celebrities, because of media attention: some of the perpetrators she had had to deal with herself, who she knew were equipped only with viciousness, meanness, cruelty and a stunning mediocrity, briefly became notorious or perversely celebrated when they were arrested or their cases came to court. Being on the Bureau’s Ten Most Wanted list, still in permanent use, was seen by many criminals as a status symbol.
She wanted Aronwitz to have no such celebrity, even in death. Her way of trying
to ensure that, or at least making a start, was to close him off from her. She made a point of not finding out anything about him, of not knowing more than the barest outline of his life, of not trying to understand or forgive what he had done. She even went to great lengths to avoid finding out what he had looked like.
For a few days, while the story ran, an old Arkansas State Police mugshot of Aronwitz appeared regularly on TV and in the newspapers. Teresa never looked. If she realized it was about to be shown, she would look away, and if she opened a newspaper or magazine to find his face pictured there, she instantly blurred her vision, shied away from looking at him.
Inevitably, she could not make him disappear, and soon she had half-glimpsed him often enough to have gained an impression of him. She knew he was young or youngish, that he had fair hair, a broad forehead, eyes that were too small. But she felt she would never recognize him, or be able to describe him.
Would she ever have known that he looked like Gerry Grove?
Or, worse, that he was Gerry Grove?
How could this be? Grove was in Bulverton on the day, this day, of the shootings. Historical certainty again. It was a fact, beyond question, in a way a scenario could never be. Scenarios were constructs, artificial re-creations by programmers of events remembered or experienced or described by other people. They were full of flaws, designed to be reactive to the people who went in as participants, they were subject to crossover, had extra bits, sometimes illogical extra bits, bolted on. That Gerry Grove appeared in Andy’s scenario, taking the place of Aronwitz, was a product of the scenarios, not a statement of what had really happened.
Teresa was sure of that. Completely sure.
She thought back, wishing she had not denied Aronwitz to herself. She wished she had kept a file on him, brought it with her, could now look at the face she had never seen properly.
On the Connect Memorative Principals screen, she typed in her own name and Gerry Grove’s and waited to see what would happen. The computer took several minutes to produce its response. It said: